


Sweet Damnation

by raiining



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Domestic abuse (not main characters), F/M, Infidelity (Not Main Characters), M/M, Non-con (main characters - not sex), Sleep Sex, Stalker!Phil, Vampire!Phil, rape (not main characters)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:34:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiining/pseuds/raiining
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson thought he knew what control was.  He had imagined that taking someone and sipping from them, leaving them alive and satisfied instead of pale and cold in the dirt, was enough.  </p>
<p>He hadn’t even begun to understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Damnation

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this story in my head for ages now, but Sirona’s fabulous vampire fic (http://archiveofourown.org/works/969329) "Move Closer (I gotta feel your touch)" prompted me to get off my ass and write it (not linking as 'inspired by' because it wasn't, really, but I wanted to give credit where credit is due).
> 
> Featuring not-always-a-good-guy vampire!Phil. 
> 
>  
> 
> Many massive thanks to Infiniteeight, who looked this over for me. THANK YOU!!!

Phil followed her home from the grocery store.

She had pale blonde hair that fluttered in wisps about her face and a drawn, tired smile. There was grace in the way she walked and he liked the gentle sway of her hips. Her arms, when she lifted the grocery bags, were strong. Phil could smell the delicious, half-smothered life in her, the potential lurking beneath the surface.

He kept his presence quiet, but she knew he was there. He followed her to her front steps and waited until she turned around. She stared at him. Phil let a little of what he was leak out around his edges. 

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t turn away. Instead, she flushed, her cheeks darkening to a dusty rose. It highlighted her unique, broken beauty, and Phil smiled.

She unlocked the door and left it open, then walked to the kitchen and put down her bags. “The boys are at school,” she said.

Phil nodded and followed her up to the bedroom. She didn’t mention her husband and he didn’t ask. It wasn’t important.

He stripped her slowly, kissing every piece of skin he unveiled. He licked her bruises and brushed his lips against her tired eyes. With every touch, her beauty awakened. Her bruises faded. Phil took his time, drawing the promise out of her, the life she had tucked away so many years ago. By the time he slid inside of her, she was shining – beautiful and brilliant, and she came as he bucked against her, his teeth fastened on her neck.

He took only a little, a promise, and licked the wound until it healed. She dozed and he filled her again, surging against her while she opened for him invitingly as she slept.

The boys came home a while later, and Phil watched while she dressed. Every piece of clothing dimmed her brilliance, but it was still there. He listened while she greeted her children and cooked for them. He knew she was showing them more love than she had in weeks. 

In time, her husband came home. Phil looked out the window and smoked a cigarette from her nightstand while the husband yelled and screamed at his family. He heard the breaking of dishes and did not flinch, only waited. Eventually, the children went to bed and the couple came upstairs. Phil stood in the corner and made himself quiet again. 

He watched while her husband beat her and then raped her on the bed, saw how she muffled her cries with her arm to avoid waking the children. Phil waited until the husband was asleep, and then he stepped away from the corner and came to her. He kissed her and she surged against him, her tears cold and wet on her face. 

Phil made love to her slowly, then, healing her a little more with every touch. When he filled her she cried out, but her husband didn’t stir. He lay beside them snoring on the bed while Phil spilled himself inside of her. Her turned her against the headrest and took her again, filling her from behind. She arched and cried against him, and Phil drank in her broken sounds. 

He took more from her this time, enough to bring forgetfulness but not regret. He left her sleeping on the bed beside her husband, her skin a little paler than it had been, but all the more brilliant for it.

When he left, closing the bedroom door behind him, Phil saw the younger of the boys was waiting for him. The child was blonde, like his mother, but his eyes were beautiful, watchful. He was not afraid. Phil smiled at him, letting just the edge of his fangs show, but the boy did not move. He stood in the dim hallway and stared until Phil turned his back and left, his footsteps quiet on the front steps. 

Outside, Phil took a deep breath. The fresh smell of Iowa filled him, the faint hint of manure, the sweet-salty tang of urban life. His steps were brisk as he walked away, filled with energy. 

He travelled east and stopped in several towns before returning to base. Every encounter was similar, but by the time he slipped back into the barracks, the only one Phil remembered with any detail was the pale, broken woman with blonde hair, and her too perceptive child. 

“Did you have a nice vacation?” Nick mumbled when Phil returned. 

“I did,” he said, stripping off his suit and replacing it with his BDU’s.

“Good, now let me go the fuck back to sleep,” his best friend grumbled, and Phil laughed.

 

*

 

They were overseas for a time. Phil couldn’t take lengthy vacations, but he slipped away from base a few times a week to satisfy his need. By the time they were Stateside again, several years had passed. As soon as he could, Phil filed the paperwork for a short leave of absence and left. He went east for a while, and then north, but eventually gave in and turned west. He made his way to Iowa and the small house he still remembered. It was empty now, abandoned; not even the scent remained.

Phil stood for a while and stared at it, then shrugged and turned away. It was not the first time he had met someone and lost them, and it would not be the last.

He took his time travelling, stopping in several motels. He never booked a room, but found someone who intrigued him and followed them upstairs. There was a broad, muscular man with soulful eyes and brunette jazz musician whose blood hummed like the notes she played. Phil left them satisfied and only that little bit paler for it.

One afternoon he came upon a travelling circus, and Phil amused himself by buying a ticket. He wandered through the various booths, buying sticky too-sweet cotton candy and watching the parents with their children. He glanced over the adults, but without real desire – he had been travelling for several weeks by now and was feeling full.

At least, he had been until one of the jugglers caught his attention. The boy was young, not yet fourteen, but he _shone_. There was fatigue in his arms, exhaustion behind his eyes, but still he smiled and leapt and kept all five balls in the air at once. Phil joined the crowd as it clapped, sliding between people who barely realized he was there, his eyes focused only on the boy at their centre.

He smelled delicious. 

The child caught the balls in one hand, neatly, and bowed to the crowd, laughing as he removed his hat and laid it at their feet. It filled with coins and rumpled dollar bills, and he smiled at his reward while the crowd wandered off. Phil couldn’t take his eyes off him.

The boy looked up. His eyes widened. Phil stared. He recognized those eyes, the paleness of his hair – it was the boy who had watched him from the stairs, the one with kaleidoscope eyes.

Desire surged through him. Phil bit it back. He was a _child_ , not yet a man, and Phil might be a monster but even _he_ had limits. He swallowed and turned away. His hands were trembling. 

Soon, he promised himself. A few years – seven at most – and he would return. He knew the boy now, knew his face and his scent. He would find him again. 

 

*

 

He paid attention to time after that, measuring the years. Nick left the army and Phil followed, listening while his friend described what it was he wanted to do, the thing he wanted to create. Phil dug up the records for the Strategic Scientific Reserve, and busied himself while the time passed. It passed slowly.

Finally, the day arrived. Phil immediately headed west, eyes tracking circus posters as he went. He saw several that featured a poorly drawn sketch of a pale blonde with brilliant eyes, a bow held aloft in his hands as he smiled at the crowds. Phil felt his pulse flutter in his chest. He followed the posters north, and stopped when he finally found the familiar tents, blue and purple and green.

Something was wrong, though. The colours were faded, the fabric patched in places. The crowds, when Phil found them, were thinner. The posters were different here, a new headline name, and though Phil searched and searched, he found no trace of the boy.

No, not the boy – the _man_. That was why he had waited, after all. It appeared he had waited too long.

Phil felt his anger boil over. It wasn’t often his wishes were denied, and he had been stymied now. He found the boy’s scent, faint but present, and followed it until it led him to a tired old man with a broken bow and a greedy heart.

The man paled when he saw Phil. Phil wasn’t hiding what he was now – he wrung the entire story out of the man, how he had found the boy years ago, trained him, taught him, and taken him under his wing. The man had seen only the promise in the boy’s arms and shoulders, and hadn’t noticed his watchful eyes. When the boy saw too much, the man turned on him – beating him until he was nearly dead, leaving him to die.

Phil almost killed the man, then. He drained him until practically the last drop, forgetting centuries of control in the thwarted desire that swamped him. It was only the memory of his best friend, the regret Nick would feel for letting him go alone, that stopped him. Phil closed his eyes and retracted his fangs. He left the man lying unconscious on the floor.

He would recover, if he stayed away from the booze and the drugs, if he harnessed his strength and did not waste it. Phil didn’t care either way. He had a man to find.

He searched for days, exhausting himself. The blood and anger and fear kept him going, but eventually Phil had to give up and return. He had found some trace of evidence; some long-ago washed away scents, but nothing that was fresh, nothing he could trace. He believed the man was alive, but that was all it was – a belief, based more on faith than fact.

Nick said nothing when he crawled back to their shared apartment, but the wine he served had blood in it. Phil closed his eyes and savoured the gift. He remembered the sickening rage that had filled him. He didn’t deserve such friends. 

 

*

 

He searched for years after that, keeping one ear to the ground. Nick’s dream became reality and Phil was there to help him, lending his experience and practised hand. Nick lost an eye but gained devotion, leading his agents with the same brand of rash planning and bull-headed desire to do the right thing that had bound Phil to him, so many years ago.

Eventually, Phil received word of an archer. He was a ghost, as silent as his weapon, and remarkably skilled. Phil followed the clues and caught a whiff of his scent. He followed it and it called to him, as fresh as that first day at the circus. 

Too fresh. His blood was on the ground, and it smelled so deliciously sweet. Phil felt his fangs erupt without conscious control, for the first time in centuries. He closed his eyes and tried to wrestle himself under control. He had to maintain his focus.

It was no use. Someone screamed, and Phil felt instinct take over. He jumped through the warehouse window and killed two people before he had even consciously realized they were there. The man Phil was after was tied to a chair, his lip bloody and bruised, but he used the distraction Phil presented to throw himself at one of his attackers.

They wrestled. Phil tore after the other threats, hardly registering the bullets that hit him, intent only on securing and claiming his prize.

Adrenalin and instinct kept him going long after he should have fallen. Phil killed the last of the enemy but, by the end, was too wounded to do more than lay on the ground and look up at Clint Barton. The man once called Hawkeye stared back at him with watchful, kaleidoscope eyes. His blood smelled like the sweetest thing Phil had ever imagined. 

It was a good thing he was dying, Phil thought as he felt his life leave him. He wanted to do much more than taste from Clint – he wanted to drain him, wanted to possess him, wanted to claim him as his own. After so many years of searching, it was clear the real danger to this man was Phil himself. 

Yet despite his injuries, Phil awoke in S.H.I.E.L.D. medical. Nick was glaring down at him, worry and relief warring in his expression. “Goddamn over-confident ignorant mother _fucker_ ,” he cursed. Phil blinked at the IV pump, the empty bags of blood hanging by his bed. “I should have left your sorry ass there to die.”

“Barton?” Phil asked.

“Fine. He’s the one who called for backup. I guess I should thank you for my newest acquisition.”

Phil grimaced. “I’m not so sure about that, boss.” Already he could smell Clint’s heady scent, the warm, life-filled glory of him. He was close.

Nick’s glare softened. “Ah, shit, Cheese.”

He left when Clint walked in, which Phil thought showed a terrible lapse in judgement – that, or overwhelming trust. Either way, Phil didn’t call him back. He should have, but he didn’t. Instead he stared at Clint, taking in the details he hadn’t had time for before. 

His hair was the same burnished blonde, his eyes the remembered remarkable shade. He watched and watched and _saw_. Phil knew there was no hiding what he was now.

He had centuries of experience in seduction, knew how to show people just enough. That was when he only wanted a taste, though. Now he wanted it all. All he could think of was how the man would feel underneath him. “Come home with me.”

Clint looked steadily back at him. “No.”

Phil swallowed his sudden surge of anger. How dare this man deny him, after so many years of searching? He growled and eyed the distance between them.

It was nothing, a mere leap. Clint might be good, but Phil knew he was better. He could be across the room and have Clint under him in seconds, have his hot, delicious blood in his mouth.

Clint knew what he was thinking, though. His eyes had always seen too much. Despite Phil’s murderous desire, he didn’t turn. He stood his ground, just like he had that night on the stairs. 

Phil clenched his fists and looked away. 

It had been years since he had forced someone. No matter how much he wanted to now, though, Clint’s refusal to move and Nick’s trust tore at him. Phil wanted to prove them wrong and expose himself for the monster he was, but it seemed they were both determined to force him to become a better man.

“Then leave,” Phil managed to say. He clenched his teeth and held his breath until he heard the door open and close. Clint’s scent in the room took hours to fade, and Phil kept his eyes shut the entire time. 

 

*

 

He took an extended vacation as soon as he was healed. He travelled the country and seduced blonde haired men in every port of call. He became a glutton, drowning himself in blood to blot out Clint’s scent. It didn’t work. The moment he stepped back into S.H.I.E.L.D. he was assaulted by the sweet, persistent smell of him, wafting down from every ventilation shaft.

“If it’s a choice between him or you,” Nick told him, after he found Phil curled into a ball in his office, his hands clenched in his hair, “I’ll choose you every time. I’d rather have you both, though.”

Phil had to laugh, because that was classic Nick – to have his cake and eat it, too. Moving brought more air to his lungs, though, all of it stained with Clint’s scent.

It was so wonderful.

“I can handle it,” he forced himself to say. 

“Okay,” Nick agreed, not arguing with him. “If you do decide to disappear him, though, give me a heads-up first. I’ll make the arrangements.”

Phil closed his eyes. He would never know what he had done to deserve such a friend. “I will.”

He forced himself to breathe normally. He took air into his lungs and held it, analyzed it, and let it out again. He did this over and over, long after Nick’s footsteps had faded and he was left alone. He could acclimatize himself to this thudding desire. He _could_.

It took days, and then weeks once Phil began going back to his daily business and found himself face-to-face with Clint in the halls, but eventually he regained some measure of his usual iron-like control. He stopped going on vacation entirely and drank only from bags – indulging himself hadn’t worked, and only made Clint’s blood smell sweeter in comparison. He focused on work and transitioned slowly back into the field, though he disbarred himself from missions involving Clint.

Eventually, though, the inevitable happened – Clint was lost, presumed dead, and Phil couldn’t stop himself from joining the search team. By the time they found him he was weak from blood loss, his missing litres staining his shirt. The HYDRA agents who had captured him were all dead, but Clint had been injured in the escape.

Phil was the lone man on the ground, his comm active in his ear. Clint’s gaze sharpened when he realized who had found him, but he didn’t resist when Phil closed the distance between them. He even gave him a wry smile, as if he had also known it would eventually come down to this.

“Here to put me out of my misery?”

Phil closed his eyes and put his hand on the wound, applying pressure. The smell was almost overwhelming, but it was surprisingly easy to tuck away the hunger and radio in for evac. He didn’t want Clint like this – he still wanted to drink from him, but Phil wanted him whole and willing, begging, even. He avoided Clint’s confused gaze, and sat with him until the medics arrived.

He licked his hand after, though. He wasn’t a saint.

Phil visited Clint in medical several times during his recovery. The stench of disinfectant made handling Clint’s presence easier, and every time he stopped by Clint seemed to relax slightly more in his presence. When he was released, Clint swung by Phil’s office to thank him for the rescue, and Phil managed to restrain himself from vaulting across the distance between them and pining Clint against the wall. It was difficult, and he left deep gauges in the wood of his desk, but he did it.

He had thought he knew what control was, had imagined taking someone and sipping from them, leaving them alive and satisfied instead of pale and cold in the dirt, was enough. He hadn’t even begun to understand. 

It took more effort than Phil had ever expended in his life, long though it had been, but he learned to tolerate Clint’s presence. He even began to enjoy it, the subtle torment of his smell. Clint had a wry sense of humour and a strong laugh, and while Phil still found himself tracking his jugular vein when they sat in the cafeteria and talked, or that time Clint fell asleep on his sofa, he restrained himself. 

They became friends, unlikely though that may seem. Clint still knew that Phil wanted him, he could never hide anything from those watchful eyes, but he accepted his desire and moved past it, forcing Phil to do the same.

Clint made him a better man. Phil loved him for that, and for so much more. It made it impossible to watch him die.

“I can’t,” he said, helplessly, as Clint bled out in front of him. The wound wasn’t a through-and-through this time, something Clint could heal from with a few transfusions and a little medical care. It was a deep, gagged hole, and it was gushing blood. Clint had stopped the four men with guns, and Phil had dropped the fifth, sixth, and seventh in hand-to-hand, but the eighth had appeared from the back alley and stabbed Clint in the side with a serrated knife. Phil had killed him a moment later, but by then it had been too late.

“Don’t… you… fucking… _dare_ ,” Clint wheezed, but there was blood on his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Phil said. He put his mouth over the wound.

Clint’s taste flooded through him. It was sweet, far sweeter than he even would have guessed. It was all the broken promise of his mother, but this time made whole. It was the green and purple of the circus tents, cotton candy and elderberries, iron and salt. Phil groaned at the wonder of it.

Clint buckled beneath him, but he couldn’t dislodge Phil’s mouth. Phil held him down. It would be easy, so easy, to take more from him. Clint didn’t have much left, and Phil could have it _all_.

He didn’t want that, though. He wanted Clint warm and laughing, wanted him groaning and begging in bed. Shuddering, Phil stopped sucking. He licked the edges of the wound until it stopped bleeding, then held it together and tongued at the skin until it closed. When he pulled away, the thin scar held.

Clint swallowed and stared at him. The wound wasn’t healed, but it had stabilized. Already there was better colour in his cheeks. His breathing had evened out. He would live.

Phil couldn’t look at him, though. He wanted to rejoice in Clint’s taste, wanted to savour the flavour still ringing on his tongue, but he couldn’t. Shame filled him. Clint had said no, and Phil had ignored his pleas. He didn’t deserve to look at him.

Phil kept himself tucked carefully away until med evac arrived, and then as soon as they landed he went to Nick’s office and resigned.

“Goddammit,” Nick sighed as he looked at Phil’s paper. “I said I wanted to keep both of you.”

“I’m sorry,” Phil said, heartbroken. “At least this way you get to keep one of us.”

Nick speared him with a look. “Don’t do anything stupid, Cheese, and don’t think I won’t come find you if you aren’t back within a week.”

Phil only shook his head and turned away. He cleaned out his desk and his apartment, and was gone before Clint had been twenty-four hours in medical. 

He went east, then south, and west, not sure where he was going, but unsurprised when he found himself in Waverly. He walked to the house he remembered, and stood for a while in front of its chipped and broken exterior.

“I remember, you know,” Clint said from behind him. 

Phil wondered when this man would stop surprisingly him. “That night?”

Clint nodded. His hands were in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the house. There was colour in his face and he moved without pain. “I didn’t understand what was going on, not really. I was only a child. I knew that you were dangerous. Dangerous didn’t mean bad, but it meant you had to be careful. She was happier, though, after that night. For the first time, she looked beautiful.”

“She was beautiful.”

Clint stared at the house. “She died a few weeks later. Car accident. He was driving. Barney and I were sent to foster care, and from there to the circus.”

“I know. I came looking for her, but when I saw the house I stopped searching. Finding you was an accident.”

For the first time, Clint turned to look at him. “You left, though.”

Phil didn’t know where he found the strength, but he held Clint’s gaze. “You were too young. I know I’m a monster, but I’m trying not to be. Most days.”

“You aren’t a monster,” Clint said. His voice was clear. “You’re dangerous, but you aren’t a monster. I’ve known monsters in my day.”

Phil swallowed and looked away. “You said no. I saved you anyway.”

“I didn’t think you’d be able to stop,” Clint explained. Phil looked over at him. His gaze was steady – watchful. He was staring at Phil. “I don’t want to die, but if I’m going to, I want it to be on my terms.”

Phil smiled. He could believe that. “I understand.”

“You’ve controlled yourself for far longer than I ever thought you’d be able to,” Clint said. He stepped closer to Phil, the gravel driveway crunching under his feet. 

Phil stared at him. Clint’s gaze was clear. “It hasn’t been easy.”

“I’m sure,” Clint said. He reached out a hand and placed it on Phil’s hip. The heat of his palm soaked through the thin material. His smell was clean and pure, and even more heady for Phil having tasted it once before. “I’ve always wanted you, you know, since that day in the circus. When I saw you at S.H.I.E.L.D. I wanted nothing more than to drop to my knees in front of you and beg you to take me. I had to be sure, though. I didn’t want to die.”

“I can never be sure,” Phil confessed, his voice breaking. “Not with you. I want you too much. I want everything.”

“I can be sure enough for both of us,” Clint said. He angled his head, and Phil couldn’t hold back any longer. He leaned over and kissed him. The taste of his mouth was different than his blood – saltier. Phil groaned and opened to him, loving it. 

“I want to do so many things to you,” Phil breathed, “but I need you to tell me when I’m going too far.”

“I will,” Clint promised. “Now take me home and do them, because I’ve wanted this for too damn long.”

Phil didn’t want to wait until they left Iowa. He found a hotel and, for once, booked under his own name. He took Clint upstairs and carefully – oh so carefully – took him apart. By the time he entered him, Clint was shaking and shuddering on the bed. He was the most beautiful thing Phil had ever seen.

“Can I drink from you?” Phil asked, his voice hoarse.

“Please,” Clint moaned, shifting against him. 

Phil took just a little, a tiny sip, but it was the most heady thing he had ever tasted. Warm and alive, vibrant and healthy – all the things Phil wanted Clint to be, always. It made it easier to stop drinking, easier to lick the wound closed. 

Phil held him in his arms after, his nose buried in Clint’s hair. He could do so many things to him right now – so many wonderful, terrible things – but Clint didn’t move, didn’t run. He wasn’t afraid of him. 

“Who else knows?” Clint asked sleepily, trusting in his arms.

“Nick,” Phil said, thinking of his friend. “I think Maria suspects, but she’s hard to read.”

“Is there anything I need to know?”

“Besides the fact that I’m dangerous, and you should probably start running now?”

He could feel Clint’s smile. “Besides that.”

Phil hummed and tucked him closer. “I’ve never done this before, kept someone for this long. I don’t know what the long term consequences might be.”

Clint stilled. “How long were you thinking, exactly?”

Phil growled, his hands clenching reflexively around Clint’s chest. Now that he had him, he wasn’t about to let him go. He forced himself to confront the thought that he might have to, though, and consciously relaxed his grasp. “As long… as long as you’ll have me.”

Clint shifted onto his back, rolling so he could look into Phil’s eyes. “You aren’t tired of me yet?” he asked, searching Phil’s face. “You haven’t gotten it out of your system?”

He could drown in that kaleidoscope gaze. Maybe he already had, that first night on the stairs, that day in the circus. “Never.”

Clint smiled. It was bright and beautiful, and so happy it made Phil’s chest hurt. “Good. In that case, we’ll figure it out together.”

“Together,” Phil echoed. He moved to brush Clint’s spine, and realized his hands were shaking. He suddenly had a name for the overwhelming emotion that threatened him. “I think I’m terrified.”

Clint laughed, nuzzling closer. “Good,” he said into Phil’s chest. “Me too.”


End file.
